Dosage question

Quick question about levels. I’m switching insulin. If the new insulin works well will I see an immediate reduction or does that take time? My boy is at 470 right now what will I see happen? My vet wants Lantus 4 units once s day. What will I see when I begin?

Lantus needs to be given twice a day and 4iu is a very high dose to begin on. I am guessing everyone in here will advise beginning on 1iu twice a day. I’m not an expert at all though and I’m sure others will come and help more.

He’s already at 4 units with another insulin (Novolin ) and he weighs in a 19 lbs. A far cry from 24 lbs. that started this mess. That was almost 3 months ago. That’s what the vet said though. I’m assuming that she knows what she’s doing.

Don’t assume the vet knows what they’re doing....! Vets are humans and not all actually have much knowledge on feline diabetes. The people on this forum have decades of experience in FD, and always it is advised to dose twice a day. Cats metabolism is too fast to do well on once a day.

And 4iu on one insulin doesn’t always equal 4iu of another.

Do you have a spreadsheet with data of how he’s doing on novolin? That will help with thoughts on dosages.

Quick question about levels. I’m switching insulin. If the new insulin works well will I see an immediate reduction or does that take time? My boy is at 470 right now what will I see happen? My vet wants Lantus 4 units once s day. What will I see when I begin?

Click to expand...

Your greatest starting challenge is likely to be forgetting the ways of Novolin.

Lantus is a slow acting depot type of insulin and although humans dose once a day, for felines shots are given every 12 hours.

Please set up a spreadsheet ASAP with any data you have. Then we can help you safely transition.

When are you thinking of starting with Lantus?
As @Wendy&Neko suggested it would be really good to see how Big is doing on the Novolin, by getting a test at PS and then checking between +3 to +6 hours after shot to see how low the insulin is getting Big, this will give us an idea of how good the current dose of novolin is and will tell us if the 4u of lantus BID is a good dose to begin with when you swap.

As other's have said, Lantus, though long acting doesn't last long enough in cats for it to be dosed once a day, it lasts 24hrs in humans, but in cats with their faster metabolism, it's around 12 hrs. ug For some reason some vets get it into their heads that lantus lasts 24hrs, I guess it's because they read the info on it, and as it's a human drug the info will be pertinent to humans not cats, and they fail to make the adjustment if they have not had any prior experience with it.
I'm sorry I know it's hard when folk are giving you different info to what your trusted vet is giving you.

If you look at the hundreds of cats on this site, you can see that we are all dosing twice a day, I've even known some cats to be dosed 3 times a day (though that's quite unusual)

If the new insulin works well will I see an immediate reduction or does that take time?

Click to expand...

Because it's a depot insulin typically it takes a while before you see the full effect of the dose, but you will only get the depot working for you if you are shooting twice a day.
But occasionally we do see cats have a strong reaction when the swap from one insulin to another, so you probably want to make sure you're at home that first cycle so you can monitor.

Insulin Depot - a "spare tank" of insulin, which has yet to be used by the body